Peter Pan's Peanut Butter
by Purple Planet
Summary: Wendy (the fourth) is a no muss, no fuss kind of girl living in modern day 2012. When an unwanted memory (like Peter Pan) flies into her life from the breath of a birthday wish, things change in ways she could never have dared to dream. (Based on the 2003 version of Peter Pan - but (by the reader) may be imagined as any version).


**Notes****: I own nothing related to Peter Pan! Please R&R :)**

Intro - Wendy (the fourth)

Wendy Moira Angela Darling had long since passed away. Her brothers John and Michael were gone too. As were their parents, meticulously helpful guardian (Nana), and all of their grandchildren.

Time stopped for no one, not in the real world. People lived and then they died. If they were lucky enough to avoid the bitter frailties and gruesome diseases of old age, age itself would become their murderer. There was no escaping that truth, no matter who you were, where you lived or how "good" you had been in your life. It was the vicious cycle of "the circle of life" and that was the way in which it would forever remain.

Wouldn't it?

Only in that faraway, seemingly intangible place of magic and dreams did time cease to continue. Only in Never Never Land did perpetual children exist. They lived, lost and motherless for all eternity in adventure-laden forests. Their nights and days of foolish, fun (and often ominous) childhood games were spent alongside glitter-molting pixies and grudge-holding pirates, whose booming cannons fired noisily into the heavenly fluff of an awaiting cumulous. Below the clouds, mermaids swam in crystal blue coves as tribes of colorfully dressed natives sang and danced to the rhythm of their steady-beating drums.

If only Neverland were real…

If only youthful fables and bedtime stories could somehow morph into reality. Maybe then people would no longer forget to remember happiness - How to act it. Feel it. _Be_ it. If only homo sapiens were permitted to live past the age of ninety (and still keep their teeth). If only Wendy (the fourth) hadn't lost her own mother (Jane the second) to breast cancer. And if only twenty-twelve wasn't the final year the earth had left to live.

"People expire," Wendy muttered quietly, as she always did when she allowed herself a spare moment to catch up on her most current phobias and (Mayan-inspired) superstitions. "Why should the world be any different?"

The girl sipped her black coffee and wiped a bead of sweat from her clammy brow. She was the fourth "Wendy" in the Darling family but in no way, shape or form did she resemble the first. The "original" Wendy (who lived in London) was a kind, modest and responsible girl. For her age, she exemplified every ounce of the dignity and class that (since her time) had all but evaporated from the modern culture of the United States - the era and location in which Wendy (the fourth) was born and raised.

She was everything her predecessor never dared to be; _This_ Wendy was blunt, arrogant and crass. She was in no way a bad person…not at all. She was merely a product of her time period. Only two weeks older than her sweet sixteenth, _this_ (hormonally charged) Wendy was about to ditch her coffee mug until dusk - she'd miss the bus if she didn't hurry - it could wait for washing until then. She was off to see her psychiatrist - (known by Wendy as "The Witch of Oz)" - who was her (second) least favorite person in the whole world - unfavored moreso was only her father.

_This_ Wendy went to see her every Sunday - to discuss all of the issues she'd rather have kept bottled up inside. _This_ Wendy grew up in a low-income neighborhood, supported her dead-beat boyfriend by working not one (but TWO) part-time jobs and never ignored an opportunity to complain about her plethora of problems. The sole resemblance she bared to the "original" Wendy was an important one…

Responsibility.

Wendy may have hated the world around her or at least acted as such, but she knew that in order to _survive_ it, she had to accept her duties and be done with it. She was a realist - which remained a rare personality trait in people her age.

To Hell with things like Neverland and stories her mother told her as a child of "Peter Pan." Wendy pretended not to remember them anymore. She had no time in her life for such fluff and fantasy…

Not when the economy had been swallowed than shat from the anus of a solemn Saint Bernard. Not when she had to put up with Brody's self-absorbed recklessness on a day to day basis, while still convincing herself that she "loved" him. Not when she had to bust her ass by working (from dawn 'til dusk when school was out) to help her slovenly, welfare-abusing family afford to pay _their_ bills. Not when everyone so desperately counted on _her_ to be the grown-up she knew she had to be in life.

Without question, Wendy had (for lack of a better word) _outgrown_ Peter Pan and her mother's tall tales of Neverland. She had become Peter's opposite and his worst nightmare personified; an adult mind in a child's body!


End file.
